


Last Act

by executrix



Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-08
Updated: 2011-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:57:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Seein' as how things don't look good, well, hell, maybe our last act in the 'Verse could be somethin' of a sexual nature."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Act

ESCALUS: _I will go darkly to work with [him]._  
LUCIO: _That's the way, for [people] are light at midnight._ (Measure for Measure, V, i, 277-8]

When he regained consciousness, Simon bitched a little about the headache. The next thing he noticed was his hard-on, which struck cold terror into his heart until he realized that if he were back in the ER or at an accident scene, someone else's erection might signal spinal injury in that person. Feeling it himself meant that, whatever else had gone wrong, at least his sensory nerves were at least partially intact. He couldn't see anything, which led him to worry about blindness (his capacity for multiplying the disasters he found to contemplate led his Uni advisor to suggest going to law school) until he heard a familiar voice say, "FUCK, it's dark in here."

At which point Simon recognized that he was inhaling Eau de Jayne, nearly at its pheromone-drenched peak. Because wherever they were, his aching head was—not in Jayne's lap, but not far either. And his motor deficiencies were at least partially explained by cold metal .

"Ain't no disgrace," Jayne said philosophically. "Me an' whatever little assistance you were able to render bein' took down by three Fed."

"Three? Are you sure?" Simon asked. "Did you see them? Because…" he tried (with no success) to gesture at the back of his neck, where something that might easily have been a police truncheon—or a brick—or for that matter a frozen battery chicken—had crashed.

"The three pairs a' cuffs, I'm goin' by" Jayne said. "If they're regular Fed, they'd have one apiece." Because from what he could feel, Jayne was lying more or less supine on a concrete floor, with Simon more or less prone upside-down on top of him. Their left hands were cuffed together; their right hands cuffed to a metal hoop set into the floor.

"Could you see them? I mean, did they have on face masks or balaclavas or something…"

"Ain't that a pastry? Why'd they stick dessert up on their ugly mugs?"

"No, **four** syllables, you know, a knitted covering…"

"Nothin' like that, I don't think. Look, is a fashion report what we really need the most of right about now? And I'm tryin' to get up, my legs move an' all—the parts you ain't stuck down to—but it ain't workin'."

"If you could see their faces, I suppose that means they've decided to kill us," Simon said.

"Naah, you got that bass-ackwards," Jayne said. "'Cause they're cops and we're crooks, so why would they give a crap if we knew what they looked like?"

"Well, that's something," Simon said. Silence descended heavily.

"Hey," Jayne said after a while. "Y'know your sister drops by sometimes, when she ain't got nothin' to do, and go all wooga-wooga on me, 'bout that time I tried to sell you two out."

"No, I didn't know," Simon said. "But it's certainly credible."

"She's seen plenty o'Mal's plans go south, and she don't bust his balls about it," Jayne said. "But anyway. My point is, she says you told that bounty-hunter fella that you didn't intend your last act in the 'Verse to be betrayin' your sister."

Simon wondered how she knew about that, then just shrugged his shoulders, as much as he could.

"So, seein' as how things don't look good, well, hell, maybe our last act in the 'Verse could be somethin' of a sexual nature."

"And now I see that you were saving the ultimate crudeness for a special occasion. Jayne, I really don't think there's much we can do."

"Bet if you kind of scrunched over some and folded in the middle you could suck my dick."

"You seem to be a little bit…dressed…for that to be an option," Simon said. He moved his head until it rested in Jayne's lap, and then (hating to ask any question the answer to which he could determine experimentally) said "That's a button fly. And I don't care if I can get the buttons open with my teeth, I'm not…going…to….even….try. Now, if you want to see if you can open the zipper on my trousers with your teeth, upside down…"

"Not happenin'," Jayne said.

Simon stretched his left hand as high up as it would go, then let it drop and patted around roughly in a circle.

"What, you fixin' on holdin' my hand?"

"No, I'm trying to determine how much play there is in the chain…"

"Oh. Thought you was grabbin' for my hand. River told me that when the boat near to got blowed up, 'Nara held your hand 'cause you was scared to die."

Simon hissed through his teeth. "If I thought I was ever going to see her again I'd tell her to charge you for a fucking newspaper subscription."

"Guess you're upset, huh?"

Not that it made much difference, but Simon shut his eyes and let a wave of mourning flood him. She would be alone, and imperiled, and what he already suspected would be his failure to cure her would become conclusive.

"Well, don't be. Don't do no good. Somethin' my Aunt Tess always used to say. 'Jayne, they can kill ya but they can't eat ya.' That was 'fore we knew 'bout Reavers, o'course."

"Naturally, you can't see that I am, to an extent, smiling," Simon said. "Because if those were Fed—or, rather, if these are standard handcuffs—I have a standard handcuff key. In fact, I have two. One in the front pocket of my vest, and one in my back trouser pocket. Although I'm afraid that I was prepared for the possibility of my hands being cuffed in front…or in back…but not for this particular situation…"

"Where'd you get a handcuff key?"

"When we were in the marketplace on Ardmore, the man who ran one of the metalwork stalls had an impacted wisdom tooth, so I took care of that for him and took the key in trade. Then Kaylee duplicated the key and Mal made it standard issue."

"You got keys? Everybody got keys 'cept me? That ain't fair."

"Yes, well, I didn't like you even before your guest spot on Fugitives Roadshow."

"Where're they at?"

"Right-hand pocket of the vest, left-hand back pocket of the trousers. You're right-handed, I'm ambidextrous…"

"You said it, I didn't…."

"So let's try to move over toward the…well, whatever it is in the floor…and try for the vest pocket, shall we?" Simon bent his knees to tuck his feet out of the way, resisting the temptation to kick Jayne in the head and pass it off as an accident.

Several minutes of effortful rearrangement later, they concluded that they couldn't get Simon's vest pocket within the reach of either of their hands.

"Good thing you got another string for the bao," Jayne said. "'Kay, I'm gonna lie back down, and you wiggle back on top of me, only past the center. Then you swing your arm back and my hand'll follow and I should be able to get it far enough up over to grab your ass."

It really must be counted as an excellent test of dexterity that once Jayne fished the key out of Simon's pants pocket, he only dropped it three times before he was able to seat the key into a rather smaller aperture than he was used to locating in rather less dark, dark rooms, and unlock the cuff joining the two of them. And then he could pass the key back to Simon, who made short work of unlocking the other two cuffs.

"Jayne, that was amazing," Simon said. "I could kiss you…"

"Now that was interestin' but not what you'd call refreshin'," Jayne said. "And no you couldn't, but I bet you could get to my buttons just fine, now."

"Whatever happened to 'die hard,' anyway?" Simon started a tirade about wasting what could have been two or three minutes of perfectly good escape time but instead stopped rubbing his wrist to re-start the circulation and started rubbing the nearest part of Jayne, which happened to be a thigh. Simon said, "Only if you will," a prospect he found so unrealistic that he was already starting the unsteady rise to his feet when Jayne said, "Hell with that noise….naaah, wait, whatthell. Only, this time, bein' you on the cold part o' the floor."

Simon pulled Jayne down on top of him and closed his arms around Jayne's back. He could have savored the heat coming off that tautly muscled body, but he reminded himself that time was of the essence. Then he flipped onto his side and turned end-over-end. With one hand, he unbuttoned Jayne's fly as, with the other, he made an ostentatiously noisy project of unzipping his own to make it clear that reciprocal effort was expected.

It was one of those proverbial situations where Many Hands Make Light Work.

With much bumping and apologizing, they rose to their feet and began to explore the narrow confines. The dimensions and windowlessness suggested a broom closet, although not only were there not shelves and shelves full of useful items, there was nothing in there at all. Patting the walls at waist-level quickly led them to the outline of the door. Patting slightly higher up failed to disclose the light switch that might have been anticipated at one side of the door or the other. Or anyplace else, for that matter.

"Got a flashlight?" Jayne asked.

Simon dug a hand into his trouser pocket. "Dammit, I left it in the other pants," he said.

"I can't say I'm surprised," Simon said dolefully of the discovery that the door was locked from the outside.

"Well, what's the plan? I mean, we could try to rush 'em when they come to get us…if they ever do, might just leave us in here to starve…"

"Dehydrate," Simon said automatically. "There seems to be air exchange so I don't suppose we'd suffocate..."

"Back to the plan?"

"Why do **I** have to have the plan? I had the handcuff key."

And then they tensed, as they could hear boots running down the hallway, and something metallic striking the door and then rattling and a surprising familiar voice saying "Awww, fuck your grandmother's **goat** sideways…" and another one saying, "Think it's that one, sir."

"Well, I guess we're a lot more welcome than we would have been a minute ago," Mal said, staring fixedly at the lack of conformity between Jayne's fly buttons and their expected alignment.

"Hey, Doc, want to borrow my hanky?" Zoe said. "Corner of your mouth…"

"Don't see how you can run with your hand over your face like that," Mal said. "And I'd call it advisable for us all to run, right around now."

LUCIO: _Marry, sir, I think, if you handled [him] privately, [he] would sooner confess; perchance publicly [he'll] be ashamed._ (V, i, 275-6)


End file.
